The crew of the _Orient_ themselves, except such as were engaged in trying to extinguish it, had not noticed it until a dense volume of black smoke suddenly burst up from below, and with it a great flare of flame, which rose from the quarter-deck, giving the ship the appearance of a volcano, and reached the mainsail. Those who were on the _Alexander_, which hung on to the _Orient_ up to that minute, say they never saw anything more awful than the faces of the doomed hundreds on which the glare was reflected. "What boats have we, Berry?" inquired the Admiral, when he staggered up in the midst of his own agony. Now that his execrated French were helpless, the prey of the fire or the deep, he had only one thought and that was to save them. "We have only a cutter, sir." "Lower away, first Lieutenant in charge; and you, Trinder, go with him and steer." Oh God! it was a sickening sight. The sea was covered with struggling sailors; our boats under a tremendous fire, which the guns, that had been left loaded as the men scrambled up for their lives, sent forth, were full to sinking. At length we came to the point when we could not take one more; and it was all we could do, by putting on a racing stroke, with the sharp fall of the oars rendering it unsafe to approach, to keep ourselves from being pulled under. Under the stern of the burning ship, to get away from the shot of the 120 guns, were to be seen hundreds of men swimming and floating on spars: the other French ships had all gone too far off to help, giving a wide berth to the expected explosion of the magazines; but as fast as they could come, the boats from the English ships, regardless of all danger, loading with the swimmers, dashed into the very mouth of destruction to receive those who were unable to swim, and hung on to the blazing ship to the last. The flames now shot high above the masthead, reminding me of the picture of Vesuvio worked in silk by one of the foretopmen, which hung in the Admiral's state-room. It was very terrible, joined to the cries of the young, the groans of the wounded, and the shouts and yelling of the burning. I think the shrieks will ring in my ears for ever; and the darting of the forked flames from yard to yard and mast to mast, until they soared above the clouds and illuminated the most minute object, making all as distinct as the meridian sun, and the numberless sinking and struggling sailors, made up a veritable pandemonium.